


rewrite the ending

by tattooedsiren



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Episode Tag, M/M, Post-Series, Reincarnation, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 07:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattooedsiren/pseuds/tattooedsiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You would think given how long he has been waiting for Arthur’s return that it would be something that is on his mind 24/7. It's not. Not anymore. For the first one hundred lives, sure, every day was a torturous wait, each minute slowly ticking by when all he could think was <i>Arthur, Arthur, Arthur…</i><br/>But it’s been thousands of years, millions of lifetimes, and still he waits. He doesn't think about Arthur every day anymore. In fact, he only thinks about him a few times a year. It might sound callous, but in truth it’s anything but. It’s self-preservation, it’s staving off a longing so bone deep it physically hurts. And on the rare occasions he lets himself think about Arthur, he spends the whole day just sitting there and <i>remembering</i>, allowing the memories to wash over him like the sea, ancient and powerful and all-consuming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rewrite the ending

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cnomad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnomad/gifts).



> For my dear Kat, who wanted, and I quote: I WANT A FIC WHERE REINCARNATED!ARTHUR IS AN AUTHOR WHO IS FAMOUS FOR A SERIES OF BOOKS HE’S WRITTEN ABOUT KING ARTHUR AND MERLIN (AND THEIR LOVE), NOT REALIZING THEY’RE HIS OWN MEMORIES UNTIL MERLIN READS THE BOOKS AND REALIZES HIS ARTHUR HAS RETURNED AND GOES TO FIND HIM.
> 
> Since I have a thing for declarations of love via novels I thought I would try and write it for her.

You would think given how long he has been waiting for Arthur’s return that it would be something that is on his mind 24/7. It's not. Not anymore. For the first one hundred lives, sure, every day was a torturous wait, each minute slowly ticking by when all he could think was _Arthur, Arthur, Arthur…_

But it’s been thousands of years, millions of lifetimes, and still he waits. He doesn’t think about Arthur every day anymore. In fact, he only thinks about him a few times a year. It might sound callous, but in truth it’s anything but. It’s self-preservation, it’s staving off a longing so bone deep it physically hurts. And on the rare occasions he lets himself think about Arthur, he spends the whole day just sitting there and _remembering_ , allowing the memories to wash over him like the sea, ancient and powerful and so fucking consuming.

And the rest of the time he goes about his daily life. He gets a job, he makes friends, he lives a full (if solitary) life and when it’s over it’s only to start all over again, for him to be reborn in the shadow of Avalon and to have his previous lives come crashing into his mind on the morning of his eighteenth birthday.

His subconscious still looks for Arthur. He notices men with sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He looks out for those of noble disposition, caring and strong and selfless to a fault. Every time a royal pregnancy is announced Merlin feels the anxiety hum through his veins for the following six months, but it always ends in tears of disappointment. They are never Arthur.

And so he waits.

As was promised, his and Arthur’s story has become a thing of legend. Mostly. Some of the important details are completely incorrect (the most obvious being Merlin being decades older than Arthur and Gwen being unfaithful) while others are eerily accurate. Sometimes a historian will claim to find ‘new evidence’ that produces ‘startling revelations’ about the legend of King Arthur. Merlin used to read them with wild abandon, anything for a glimpse into the old life. But he always ends up disappointed by the completely inaccurate information, so he gives up. He never watches any of the movies or plays based on their life – partly because of how inaccurate they are, how they focus on the supposed Arthur/Gwen/Lancelot triangle, and Gwen was a beautiful person and an amazing queen and she deserves better than that, but mostly because it's just too painful. He never reads the new books which claim to tell the story ‘as never before’ because he is always woefully disappointed by them.

Which is why Merlin doesn’t even read the acclaimed new novel by Elliott Leonard when it's released to much fanfare. Because he doesn’t want to admit it, but part of him has given up hope. He’ll never find Arthur again. He is going to live for the rest of eternity alone, cursed with memories he can’t escape or change, and as punishments go, Merlin thinks it’s a pretty fitting one. 

Maybe if he had told Arthur sooner, things would be different. Maybe if he had called Kilgharrah sooner he could have saved Arthur. He thinks of the hundreds of things he could have done differently, anything that could have saved his friend, his King. But he didn’t. He failed. He believed Arthur when he said Merlin had helped him build a new Camelot, but they never got to experience it together as equals, without secrets or barriers. 

Merlin wonders what that life would have been like. He can’t imagine it being anything other than wonderful.

Over the years (decades, centuries, millenniums) he has seen almost everyone again. Gaius was a village mayor in the 16th century. Gwaine was the innkeeper at the Rising Sun tavern in the early 19th century. Gwen was his best friend in his last life. None of them remembered their shared past and Merlin didn't try and remind them. He was just so happy to see them again. Leon, Lancelot, Percival, Elyan, Hunith, Balinor, Freya, William, he's seen them all. But not Arthur. Never Arthur.

He’s on the train, of all places, when it happens. A woman who looks to be his age comes and sits directly opposite him, despite the many free seats in the carriage, and pulls a book from her bag and starts reading. 

Merlin can literally feel the breath leave his body. He has died countless times, and has had the man he can only refer to as his soul mate die in his arms, and never once has anything felt like this.

The cover is familiar in ways it has no right to be. It’s simple in its design, and every detail is so vividly familiar that Merlin feels like he might cry. Two men sitting at a small table in front of a calm blue beach, two goblets in the space between them, the man on the left with fluffy blonde hair and covered in chainmail and the man on the right with dark hair and plain clothes and, _fuck_ , it’s them, it’s him and Arthur, and Merlin feels like he might pass out.

He doesn’t go home like previously planned, instead gets off the train three stops early and practically runs to the nearest Waterstones. _The Dragons Call_ is still in the new release section, and he picks it up with shaking hands, the sight of him and Arthur about to drink their poisoned goblets for each other still so surreal.

He flips the book to find the blurb. It’s short, and hits him like a blow to the chest.   
_  
Merlin, a young sorcerer of twenty years old, arrives in Camelot only to find he must keep his magic secret in a kingdom that has outlawed sorcery. There he meets Arthur, prince and heir, and mutual dislike instantly follows. But Merlin and Arthur have a shared destiny, and when Merlin is appointed as Arthur's manservant, he vows to help Arthur become the great king he is destined to be. Dislike gives way to admiration, and these two men, two halves of the same coin, start out on a journey which proves that soul mates arrive in the least likely of circumstances.  
In this, the first of five novels, join Arthur and Merlin as they take their first tentative steps towards a friendship and destiny that will unite a kingdom and create a legend that will echo throughout time…  
_  
Merlin can feel something akin to hysteria well within, and he breathes deep, desperate to keep it at bay. He buys the book and rushes home. He quickly searches the book jacket but there is no photo of the author. He collapses onto the couch and reads. And reads. And cries. And reads. And laughs. And reads some more.

He doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, just sits there and reads through the night, devours the whole book in one sitting.

It's _Arthur_.

It has to be. There is no other explanation. This is them, their life. The words printed in black and white in front of him were the same ones he muttered a million years ago. The descriptions of Camelot are so accurate Merlin can feel the cool stone beneath his fingertips. The characters are so vivid he can hear their laughter echoing in his ear. It's all there, from Lady Helen to Nimueh and Ealdor to the Labyrinth of Gedref. His heart pounds in his chest and he can't breathe and he cries and laughs and it's all too much, he feels like he's going to crawl out of his skin or pass out or something just as ridiculous.

At the end of the book, on the page following the ominous to be continued… there is a dedication page. Merlin wonders why it isn't at the front of the book, but then he reads it, and understands.  
 _  
M,  
There is so much I want to say. I'm so sorry. I'm so thankful. I miss you. Are you out there somewhere, still waiting for me after all these years?   
Dare we rewrite the ending?  
Find me, please. I'll be waiting for you, in the place where we parted, always waiting, until we're together again.  
A  
_  
Merlin laughs, tears streaming down his face. His Arthur is out there. Finally, after all this time, he's out there waiting for him. And he _remembers_.

Merlin pauses only long enough to shower and change before he is out the door. He lives a half hour drive from Albion (not that it's called that anymore, but Merlin can never think of it as anything else). He used to live a lot closer, but seeing the lake every day hurt too much, and for no other reason than his sanity he moved away. But he couldn't bear to go too far, and he still found himself on the banks of the lake every year on the anniversary of the day Arthur was taken from him.

He makes it to Avalon in twenty minutes. It's dawn, the sun slowly rising on the horizon. Everything looks so different now, so modern, and yet in his mind all Merlin can see is Arthur, still in his chainmail, asking Merlin to _just hold me, please_ and saying _thank you_ , his eyes fluttering closed as the last breath leaves his body. Merlin shudders with the memory, dragging in a deep lungful of air. 

Standing here now, he's suddenly at a loss. All these years and he has imagined hundreds of ways their reunion could go, every option available has been considered by Merlin. But this bit, the finding him, that is something he never really thought about.

He sits on the grass for a while, enveloped in the mist of the lake, staring out at the calm water. He didn't know what he expected. For Arthur to be standing here waiting for him? That makes no sense. Merlin runs a hand through his hair, pulls his jacket tighter against the cool air. 

Where is he?

When the chill gets too much Merlin stands and starts pacing. And it is then that he notices a small stone cottage, smoke billowing from the chimney stack. Merlin knows the building well. It's stood here for many years, but Merlin rarely sees it occupied. He is drawn to it with an almost otherworldly pull, and when he approaches he notices the letterbox, cast iron with a small dragon on top.

Fuck, this is really it.

Merlin slides in past the open gate, walks down the stone path to the front door. He knocks three times, and waits.

It takes an eternity for the door to swing open (and this is coming from someone who has waited literal lifetimes) but when it does, when he finally sees Arthur, he knows that every second he has waited for this moment has been worth it. His hands are shaking and he can hear the blood rushing through his veins and he wants to cry and laugh and cry some more because it's Arthur, _Arthur_ , right here after all these years, real and solid before him. 

"Arthur," he says in a choked sob, the word breaking halfway through.

Arthur is just looking at him, stoic, confused. Merlin doesn't even care that he isn't wearing the matching expression of a grinning idiot (whenever Merlin had pictured this moment he always imagined bursting into tears, and though he is so overwhelmed by this moment he can do nothing but grin, he's _so fucking happy_ ). He just waits, waits for the realisation he is sure is coming.

Arthur goes to reach out and touch him, but then drops his hand. Merlin doesn't even think, just grabs Arthur's hand, presses it to the centre of his chest, slides his fingers between where Arthur's are splayed. 

"Merlin?" Arthur whispers, slow, a question, disbelief and hope warring in his features.

Merlin nods, the enthusiastic movement causing tears to fall down his cheek, but fuck it he doesn't care, because he is still grinning and Arthur has the material of his jumper fisted in his hand and he steps forward, cups the other hand around the back of Merlin's neck, and it's like Merlin can finally breathe.

And then there is no space between them, arms thrown haphazardly around each other, Merlin's face buried in his shoulder, Arthur murmuring into his hair. Merlin hears every word (" _I can't believe it … oh God I've missed you … Merlin … thankyou … for everything you did and for waiting for me and oh God … are you really here? …_ ") and he just squeezes tighter.

They release each other, but can't move, just stand there on Arthur's doorstop, staring at each other. Arthur runs his hands over Merlin's face and it's so real. Merlin's hands fit easily around Arthur's hips, and he never wants to let go.

"How?" Merlin asks, vague and pointless and he doesn't actually care because they are finally together again.

"I don't know. I've had the memories all my life. I thought I was going mad, imagining a whole other world, a completely different life. But I knew I couldn't have made you up. No one could imagine someone like you."

Merlin laughs and Arthur smiles at him and this is it, after waiting all this time Merlin is going to die from sheer happiness.

"Have you waited long?" Arthur asks, pained, fingertips trailing down Merlin's neck to his chest and his rapidly beating heart.

Merlin suddenly feels ancient, the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressing onto his shoulders. He stumbles forward slightly, but Arthur is there, finally, is there to catch him before he falls. Merlin presses their foreheads together, feels the steady weight of Arthur's hands as they move up his arm to cradle his face, and Merlin doesn't know who moves first but it doesn't matter, because Arthur's lips are firm and sure as they move against his, and Merlin feels _reborn_.

"Long enough."


End file.
